History
Genesis of the Southern Continent On the northern continent, in the 12th year of the 9th dynasty, a slow rot had set into the Holy Keleraden Empire. The governors had begun to bicker among themselves and crime was overtaking the great roads to the capital. Avatar-regent Avictus the Third, the divinely chosen emperor who ruled the sylvan as the hand of god on Terrene, had begun to lose control of the endless aspirations of his far-flung aristocracy. As the Empire apprehensively held its breath, a radiant winged monk stepped forward with a shocking claim. Nikias Kel'Armis, devout servant of the church and emperor, had received a vision from Kelerath. He spoke of a continent beyond the sight of the empire's galleys. A staggering four month's journey away lay a land they were divinely commanded to tame and conquer, to carry Kelerath's splendor to new peoples and to unite the Empire under a single purpose. The governors lashed back. This new 'prophet' though marked with the wings and resplendent countenance of a Sylvan who had spent his years dedicated to the pursuit of the light spoke of things that could not be seen or reached. A four months journey by even their largest Trireme was risky even with proper navigation. To sail blind into the open ocean with thousands of hungry colonists aboard with little to knowledge plan with would be suicide. Their pressure mounted until the Emperor Avictus bent to their concerns and sent Nikias with a single well-stocked galley full of his most ardent followers to scout this new land. A year passed as the pressure on the empire continued to mount. In the streets, rumor of new, bolder defiant actions circulated as the governors continued to test the will of the fearful and meek Emperor. At the urging of the priesthood, Avictus married a young strong-willed priestess and the new Empress Justine began taking on the matters of court: holding the governors back, commanding the legions, and advising her husband. The Argent Legions were dispatched to take station in the seats of the bureaus; an armed reminder of the supremacy of the Winged Throne. Then, as open conflict seemed inevitable to all, the prophet returned bearing proof of the new land and hope for the Empire. At Justine's urging, Avictus declared the first crusade. Nikias brought his proof before the people, a small huddled prisoner train of beings never before seen: humans. These godless creatures of the new continent bore a strange power, magic, a power that was an affront to Kelerath. Before the crowd they were declared pagans and enemies of the Sylva and burnt for their crimes. The church began calling upon the aristocracy to fund and lead the new campaign. Criers read tales of the great riches and open lands of the new world and darker stories of fearful and malicious powers the humans possessed which the Sylva had been commanded to snuff from God's sight. The Argent Guard legions sprang into action. Governors and their supporters were rounded up, declared expedition leaders for the new Holy Crusade. Those who denied their duties to the Church and Emperor quickly lost support from the masses and were sent in chains to the new world anyway. Young nobles and humble citizens crowded forward, eager to join the fight for their faith and to claim new lands and riches. Justine's sweep of the Empire did not end with the aristocracy, criminals and beggars were rounded up, offered clemency or land to colonize the newly named Southern Keleraden. Tithes and taxes were called and poured into docks and shipyards where volunteers, undesirables, and supplies were loaded onto ships and set away as fast as they could be built. In time however, the cost of the endeavor began to mount and after 47 years of borrowing, taxation, currency debasement, and shipping away manpower, the Empire became unable to fund its armies and shipyards. The Southern Continent offered no flow of treasure back into The Holy Keleraden Empire. The flow of persons to the new world slowed to a trickle, and the power the Winged Throne had over the colonization of the new lands was severed. By the time of Justine's death the Empire's coffers were empty, the ranks of the legion demanding silver and refusing to accept the Empire's now worthless currency, and the governors many of whom had been installed by Justine herself began flexing their autonomy. Avictus became even meeker with Justine's death and without an heir, the church feared the Empire would dissolve into chaos. An election was called for among the priesthood and a new organization began to emerge: the papacy. All lands and peoples of the Empire were declared to belong to Kelerath as before, but now all matters of governance would be administered by the Clergy rather than an Avatar-regent. Bishops of each of the bureaus offered their services to the governors who in turn would try to curry favor with them in order to influence the papal elections and decrees. Over the next two hundred years the papacy would delicately balance the bureaus as they became nations under the guidance of the church. Colonization of Southern Keleraden Conflicts within the colonists arose before even setting foot upon the new world. Should they set out immediately to conquer and take their new homes by force or should they explore and build up? Were the colonies their own entities, or extensions of the bureaus and Empire they'd sailed from? With each colonist came a different motivation. The nobles and former governors were eager to establish new lands to reign over. Criminals and beggars who had been coerced into the voyage were usually only eager to survive, though many saw a golden opportunity to build a new life. Of the countless volunteers there were aspirations to conquer or simply to settle. Generals and Captains of the military forces sent disagreed as to whether to begin campaigning immediately or to try to keep control of the colonists. And so as their cramped and disease-ridden triremes lurched to shore after long months at sea, the scattered ships were dismantled for lumbar and the colonists found themselves divided and competing. Brigades of zealots thrust inland to seek out the enemies of Kelerath, usually to become bogged down in poor logistics and unsure direction to be forced to settle anyway. Governors and opportunists began to build followings to create settlements in their own desired image. For the common Sylvan, the land provided the promise of their own farms, homes, and lighter taxes, but the risks and uncertainty brought persons to seek out others of their own ethnicity and backgrounds whom they felt they could more easily trust as they created communities. For almost fifty years ships poured into the new world regularly, carrying with them thousands upon thousands of the devout, the conscripted, the eager, and the unwilling to colonize the new world. Then very quickly, the numbers of new triremes began to decline, their crew speaking of uncertainty and bankruptcy in the old Empire, until finally the trickle of ships came almost to a halt. New colonists still arrived, but only scarcely and self-funded and the news they brought of the old Empire, now the Papacy, became to sound almost entirely foreign to the settlers of Southern Keleraden. While focus had turned to survival and thriving in the new world, the crusade had not gone forgotten. With each summer after the planting, expeditions continued the mapping of the new continent, the expansion of their settlements, and the conquest of the heretics. Scattered through the west of Southern Keleredan, human settlements and homes fell to preying bands of the much more numerous Sylvan. Each human captured or slain came at a great cost though as human weapons were loud, accurate, fearsome, and powerful; capable of ripping through Sylvan armor like paper. The humans that surrendered or were otherwise captured were taken as slaves to provide manpower to help fuel Sylvan expansion and to be questioned by Sylvan eager to learn of the weapons and tools the humans used to such great effect. As the devout forces of Kelerath pressed to the ocean, fewer and fewer humans were encountered, instead stripped and abandoned homes met their forces. At last the Crusades came to the foothills and grasslands of the western coast and a single human city stood before them, ramshackle buildings of wood, steel, and stone ringed with a hasty palisade and earthwork defense. The Sylvan paused, deliberating whether to demand surrender, attack outright, or to fall back and martial their forces. The commander Legate Priamos however swept them up and spurred them forward with a cry "Kelerath wills it!" As they neared the city a single man stepped out from the city, with a white flag and his arms outstretched. Again the Sylvan paused, but Priamos again cried "Kelerath wills it!", the crossbowmen fired upon the man but without result. The Sylvan bolts turned aside in the air, and the figure before them turned away, back towards the city as the humans on the wall opened fire into the Sylvan ranks. Nearly cut down to a man, the few remaining Sylvan straggled back to their homes, with warnings of the strength of the humans. In the years that followed, the Sylvan would build forts overseeing the human's settlements in the Western Plain, watching as the great human city spread into a sprawl of fortified, interconnected towns. Despite sporadic violence and numerous major offenses, human weaponry and the sorcery of the Magi would protect the Dream Cities against all comers and the will of Kelerath.